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Christine has over 25 years of marketing experience, and is a recognized thought leader, speaker and author with expertise in corporate strategy, CX and emerging technologies. She has been published in BusinessWeek, Forbes, Huffington Post and has been quoted in several books on marketing and technology. Christine has keynoted and spoken at over 30 conferences on CX and business strategy.

She has directly contributed to creating over $2.7B in value for clients like Oracle, Great Place to Work Institute, Santa Clara University, PayScale, Selligent, New Pig Corporation, Prime Therapeutics, Lithium and McKesson.

Recognized by SDL as a CX Master in 2015, and one of three “B2B Luminary” by MarketingProfs in 2013, she was also Silicon Valley’s Most Influential Women in 2010 as established by Silicon Valley Business Journal.

With stints as EVP Marketing, Business Development & Alliances at Egenera, CMO at Ariba, she has also held management positions with SAP, Oracle and PriceWaterhouse. She holds a Masters in Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University and a Doctorate from Golden Gate University.

Based on the discussions with CMO influencers, Christine Crandell talks about the biggest challenge for CMOs in 2019

Good news, Chief Marketing Officers: your tenure continues to grow.

In a recent research report, Winmo “considered over 2,400 CMO data points across national advertisers with media spend above $2 million, investigating CMO tenure by duration, industry, and more.”

The report, titled “The CMO Lifecycle,” found that the average CMO tenure is 43 months, or 3.5 years. I remember the days when the average tenure of the CMO was 18 months!

The CMO in 2019

A lot is expected of CMO’s and their teams; for a continued rise in their average tenure, they’ll need to drive the strategy and execution to meet the business goals set forth by their CEO’s and Boards.

To gain insights on what’s in store for CMO’s in 2019, I reached out to CMO influencers with this question:

“What do you predict will be the biggest challenge for CMOs in 2019?”

Here are their answers.

Marketing Attribution

Tamara McCleary is CEO of Thulium.co, a social media analytics and consulting agency. For Tamara, it’s not enough for CMO’s to help the organization achieve its goals. CMO’s need to demonstrate, via data, the direct contribution (to those goals) from their specific marketing campaigns and expenditures.

Here is Tamara’s prediction:

“The greatest challenge for Chief Marketing Officers in 2019 is attribution. Top CMOs realize that to elevate marketing’s seat at the executive table, the CMO must own attribution of marketing spend and prove ROI through data and analytics.

The CMO must bring marketing closer to the business, positioning marketing as a business asset versus liability. With artificial intelligence and sophisticated MarTech tools at our disposal, 2019’s challenge is also 2019’s promise to marketers.

In a nutshell, the challenge is the c-suite and board’s expectation of the CMO to prove spend and directly correlate marketing’s spend to business revenue generation.”

Elevating Your Social Media Marketing

Lilach Bullock is a content marketing and social media marketing expert. Your competition is on the same social networks as you. For Lilach, a challenge for 2019 is how to stand apart on social media and gain an unfair share of voice in your industry.

Here is Lilach’s prediction:

“I think that one of the biggest challenges that marketers and CMOs will have will be to get results from social media and even more so, grow their results from previous years. Just like with content, social media is getting incredibly saturated and the competition is absolutely fierce amongst brands trying to get their audience's attention.

Not to mention, some social networks are making it more and more difficult for brands to be seen and reach their audience. I think that the biggest question CMOs need to ask themselves this year is, how do we stand out? How do we create unique, interesting and engaging campaigns that stand out from our competitors?”

From Mediocrity to Growth

Brian Solis is Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group. According to Brian, the right strategy, combined with emerging technologies like AI and machine learning, positions marketing as an “enabler for total CX.”

Here is Brian’s prediction:

“If I could offer any advice to CMOs, it would be to swap out the ‘M’ for a ‘G.’ Legacy marketing is an endeavor toward building relationships upon a foundation of mediocrity. Instead, the ‘G’ represents an opportunity toward growth.

In an era of AI and machine learning, in combination with an open mind and a focus on the entire customer journey, the role of marketing can finally deliver customer experiences that meet or exceed modern customer expectations.

Doing so moves the purview of marketing beyond the top of the funnel and positions it as an enabler for total CX. And that makes marketing a partner in business growth and a partner to CEOs, boards and shareholders.”

Customer Experience

Karen Steele is CMO of LeanData, Inc. Research firm Gartner, in their CMO Spend Survey 2018-19, note that Customer Experience is “one of the top three capabilities in this year’s survey and one they consider to be vital to their marketing strategies in the coming 18 months.”

In fact, Gartner reports that 18% of CMO budgets will be allocated to CX initiatives. Karen has a similar sentiment in her prediction:

“The greatest challenge for CMOs in 2019 is the Customer Experience. CMOs must be Customer-centric and focus on the outcomes and experiences Customers achieve with their products and services.

We as Marketers have spent a lot of time building relationships with Customers, but often understand little about the Customer’s unique journey and the path to success. Building a network and community with Customers and committing time to listen and learn and document success patterns will help every CMO achieve greater Customer-centricity in 2019.”

The CMO in 2019: Your Thoughts?

It was interesting that our experts chose distinct challenges for CMO’s to address in 2019: attribution, social media marketing, growth and customer experience. It’s clear that CMO’s have a lot on their plates.

What are your thoughts about the CMO in 2019? I’d love to hear from you. Share your insights in the comments area below. Thanks!

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